Women Effect Investments
From the streets of Los Angeles to the heart of Bogotá, women are doing extraordinary things for their families, communities, the world. We seek to celebrate them. Empower them. Be them.
Women Effect Investments, led by Criterion Ventures, leverages impact investment to support the power of women in creating scalable solutions to global challenges. Impact Investing, also known as social investing or ethical investing, describes an investment strategy that seeks financial return and social good. WEI enables investments in women – in their entrepreneurship, training, housing, education and childcare—investments not donation. WEI does this by:
- Engaging leaders in gender and in impact investing and creating new levels of exchange.
- Mapping the activity and history of investing with a gender lens
- Researching what motivates women to participate in impact investment
- Creating compelling messages and
materials to engage people around investing
in women and girls - Catalyzing intermediaries to create compelling opportunities to invest in women and to bring a gender lens into the emerging impact measurement instruments.
We are doing this because when women are
economic agents and leaders, social change
accelerates and returns multiply. The
returns of women-focused investing can be
measured in our families, our neighborhoods,
and on the other side of the world.
We connect the worlds of impact investing, women’s capital and gender knowledge to create insights and collaborations which will compel investors and create new possibilities.
WEI has partnered with the Calvert Foundation and other collaborators to create an opportunity to invest in The Women Effect now. By linking a mainstream, proven community investment vehicle - Calvert Foundation’s Social Investment Notes - with the profound returns generated by supporting women and girls, we not only create a strong investment vehicle, we also create the promise of a much larger sea change.
WEI, at scale, will be self sustaining, but not profit producing. It requires philanthropic support for launch. This is a world changing effort and there are some great people signed on. But we need more people to join in this extraordinary opportunity to empower women through investments. WEI is seeking seed funders at $5,000-$25,000.
If you are interested in providing philanthropic support to WEI or in investing in WEI at Calvert Foundation, please contact Jackie VanderBrug at vanderbrug[at]criterionventures.com for more information, and let us connect you to Women Effect Investments.